


Ex gratia

by yekaterina



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Sexy Lawyers, Trans Katya, a study in how obsessively hating someone since you were young makes you weird as you age
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:56:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yekaterina/pseuds/yekaterina
Summary: Ex gratia is Latin for "by favor", and is most often used in a legal context. When something has been done ex gratia, it has been done voluntarily, out of kindness or grace.Beatrice and Katya have been bitter rivals since their college years, best showcased by their hotblooded bouts at mock trial competitions between their respective schools. After years of not being in each other's hair, the law firm Katya works for merges with Beatrice's, and they are thrust back into each other's lives.





	Ex gratia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UNHhhh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UNHhhh/gifts), [campholmes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/campholmes/gifts).



> I wrote 98% of this chapter back in October. Time flies! Anyway, this first chapter operates as a prologue. After this, I will jump ahead, but there will be flashback moments, if not chapters, for this fic. I will make a point to say something about that in this notes section.
> 
> This is going to deal with unhealthiness; in relationships, mental states, etc. I'd go as far to say that it could be cataloged as a dark fic. The summary is going to change after I post the next chapter. I don't feel as if what occurs in this one is apt to represent the entire work.
> 
> Talk to me @ friendofdolly on tumblr.

It is going to kill her, this white-hot hatred that burns to a chill, cold enough to have her pulling her bathrobe tighter around herself. It is going to kill her, but first, she's going to let the gin and tonics she had earlier and the minibar she is steadily depleting at present have their turn at it.

Beatrice doesn't care, not at this moment. Not with Kim tipsy and giggling at the inaccuracies of the fifteenth season of _Law & Order_ on the carpet of their shared hotel room.  Any other night, admittedly too many, she'd right there with Kim, lolling on the ground and keeping a tally of every blunder in the newest episode.

Tonight, she's staring out the window, looking down without awe at the busy Boston streets. They are loud and colorful against the dark night, an echo of the ones back home in New York.  There is no comfort to be derived from it. She slings back another mini vodka and coughs hard enough to spit onto the window pane. In truth, she shouldn't be getting drunk.

Not this drunk, at least, and not this kind of drunk; drinking to numb a feeling. Her team won, fair and square. With more than enough help from her 'brilliant prodigal mind', or so it's been described as to her in clipped tones that she's assumed are meant to sound sincere, ever since she became a nationally ranked chess player at the age of eight.

She doesn't think anyone who's said so is wrong. She'd just like them to compliment her beauty more often.

Columbia won, and she was the one clutching onto the gigantic golden trophy in the group picture. It is the picture that is going to be on the main page of Columbia's website, the front page of the New York Times tomorrow morning, and thus on her mom's fridge back in Brooklyn.

Beatrice knows this from experience. This being the fourth year in a row she has won, and subsequently, the last. She won't be doing this come law school. She doubts her successors will do as well without her.

There is a hollowness to it, though. A shallow victory, celebrated by all the of age seniors and one clever freshman with a decent fake ID but a far more convincing smile. Of course, the hollow feeling in her stomach is not shared by her teammates. Surely theirs is one of nausea.

She is the one with the more personal rivalry with Harvard, in particular, with one of the students on their team. It has been four years of hatred via mock trial, as well as chess competitions, debates, and quiz bowls. If she cared for rowing and not fencing, she'd have joined her school's team just to beat Katya Zamolodchikova in that too. She regrets not doing so.

Their bouts have historically been punctuated by private ones afterward. Vile words would be shared between the always champion, Beatrice, and the always loser, Katya, in stuffy hallways until both of them were torn away from each other by the entirety of their respective teams.

Tonight's bout didn't follow suit. As soon as the trial ended, Harvard's team captain stalked out of the courtroom and left her team behind to stand with awkward, respectful smiles. It left Beatrice with a wide, genuine one.

Her glee died upon stepping out of the courtroom after handshakes and congratulations, seeing Katya was nowhere near. Four years of stoking a flame only to have it dwindle into nothing. Beatrice had been ready to head back to the hotel room then and there. Instead, she found herself being dragged along through Boston's nightlife, she and her teammates guided around the city by the nicer members of Harvard's team.

She had asked each member countless times where Katya was and why she ditched and was met with a plethora of slurred, unsatisfactory responses. Enough had piled on, coupled with the too-friendly questions regarding the nature of her relationship with Katya, to motivate her to leave a pub that resembled all of the ones before it.

The stand-out inquiry was, of course, if she wanted to know the size of Katya's dick. Despite her hasty rejection and hastier attempt to exit, the measurement was yelled at her in a drunken chorus. Beatrice stumbled out of the double doors with a soft moan behind a clamped hand. She decided then that she hated Boston and never wanted to come back.

As she drinks to forget in the waining comfort of her hotel room, she remains fixated on Katya's own dramatic departure. The veins in her red forehead were bulging, matching the ones in her hands as she balled them into fists. Katya takes everything all too seriously, Beatrice has long ago deduced, from the somber colors of her suits to how she tries and fails to restrain her thick Boston accent. And for what?

She catches herself saying the question aloud and she covers her mouth. Kim either doesn't hear her or doesn't care and she returns to her thoughts.

Katya always looks a hot mess and acts hotter. Beatrice had taken many a cool sip of water seated at her table whilst her rival had been hunched over her own, white-knuckling the edge of it as whatever judge it was that time attempted to rein her in. Katya's mind is razor sharp, like her own, but the fire within the both of them manifests in different ways.

Call it secular anger versus Catholic choler; Beatrice's fire burns inside, comes out in bursts with the right amount of prodding, while Katya's boils over with little provocation. They are both very aware of this fact. Acutely.

But Katya's jaw is even sharper than her mind. Beatrice knows this from too many glances towards her during the quiet moments throughout their years of rivalry. Earlier tonight, Beatrice was aghast to discover Katya has picked up the habit of chomping on gum as if none of this matters to her. But it does, so clearly it does. It is almost painful to know.

Beatrice has had instances, brief moments with her teammates cheering all around her, where she has wondered if it matters as much to her as it does to Katya. Those moments come and go. She has won enough by most people's standards, but to her own, she can never get enough. Beatrice loves to win. She wouldn't take back any of her victories just to see how winning would look on Katya.

Swiveling around in the hotel desk chair, she slowly realizes that she's never seen Katya smile without hatred on her lips. Not in all their years and competitions. It is hard to imagine a real one on her, but she does anyway. She smiles back at the fantasy.

Beatrice crosses her legs in the chair. Kim's giggling, drawing her out of her thoughts again though not out of her funk, or whatever it has morphed into. She looks over towards the television and sees Kim making a tally on a notepad. Beatrice looks back to the window and keeps from squeezing her legs together as she counts cars driving by on the ground, nineteen stories below.

She would be touching herself now if she was alone, or if Kim was passed out on the floor, but she's not given either of those options. Beatrice huffs and asks Kim to turn the volume down. Kim's halfway to the button when there's a loud banging on the door, spooking Kim. Beatrice isn't fazed.

She keeps turning in lazy circles in her chair as the knocking continues and she is on the verge of yelling at room service to go away. Beatrice realizes with a start that neither she nor Kim had ordered anything.

Her eyes bug and she stands up too fast not to induce a headrush. Before she had sped out of the pub, she wrote her hotel name and room number on a napkin and stuck it into the sweaty palm of one of the Harvard students. She told them to pass it onto Katya in whatever way they could. Beatrice regrets her earlier desperation, but not enough to keep herself from skipping over to the door clumsily and swinging it wide open.

Katya is standing before her, swaying side to side and looking as disheveled in a suit as ever, smelling like the pub from earlier. Beatrice knew they were all the same. She follows Katya's slow eyes in looking down at herself to see her bathrobe tied loosely, loose enough to be falling open, revealing her tight college t-shirt and french cut underwear. She looks back up at Katya with a smirk.

Katya doesn't return it. Instead, she yanks on her tie then throws a long finger towards Beatrice's nose, almost poking it, as she begins her tirade. It's just like all the ones they have had before and Beatrice bites back a squeal before jutting into Katya's argument, going as toe-to-toe as she can with a dizzy head and a heat creeping down her stomach to burn between her legs.

They are three minutes deep into their opposing views on the jury's decision to deem an imaginary man innocent when somebody swears loudly. It isn't Beatrice nor Katya. Kim wiggles through the doorway, bumping past the two with a roll of her eyes.

Kim says something about going to sleep with Pearl that neither of them pays attention to. Katya's surprise at being bumped has her swaying harder and Beatrice steadies her by the shoulders and she digs her fingers into them. The fabric of Katya's jacket is soft and fits her shoulders snugly. They are broad and strong and Beatrice doesn't realize she's massaging them until Katya's hands curl around her wrists to pull her off.

"Fuck," Katya mutters as she rubs her temples. Those veins are bulging and Beatrice wants to lick them, press her tongue hard and flat against Katya's blotchy pink skin. Katya's hands move to clutch onto either side of the doorframe and her black dress shoes slide over the hallway carpeting where she tries to stand upright. "I lost where I was. Fuck! Goddammit."

Katya really does look a mess. She had looked so neat and prim hours ago at the very beginning of the trial. Not so much by the end. Her short hair is wild, sticking out in every direction where she had pulled on it during her closing statement. Her eyes are red. If Beatrice didn't know her like she does, she'd attribute it all to drunkenness, not to the crying she knows Katya must do after every loss.

She feels bad for Katya and prides herself on that. She can hate her and feel pity for her. It has Beatrice giggling as she unbuckles Katya's belt and slides her hands into her pants to tuck in her dress shirt for her. Katya makes some kind of noise, a gargle or a groan, Beatrice isn't sure.

"You want to come inside?" Beatrice asks. One of her hands slips out of the front of Katya's pants to curve around to the back, grabbing an asscheek that she is finally able to affirm as being as tight as it looks. Katya stills, her sliding feet coming to a stop as she stares half-lidded into her eyes that are widening in response.

Beatrice holds her breath as she starts to stroke Katya's cock. It hardens against her fingers and her knees twitch at the length of her, at her leaking into her palm as she squeezes the fat tip. Katya's knuckles are white on the doorframe.

Katya follows her wordlessly, step by step as she walks backward in order to keep the eye contact between them intact. Katya's breathing through her nose in short puffs and she's growing harder in her hand. Beatrice screams a little at Katya kicking the door shut behind them.

The sound of the television snaps Beatrice out of her daze. Katya backs her up against the bed and Beatrice gropes around the bedding to find the remote and turn it off.  Her robe comes undone and Katya pushes it off her shoulders. She's quick to pinch Beatrice's tight nipples through the soft fabric of her shirt and it has her moaning embarrassingly loud. Katya kneads her heavy breasts in a clear effort to make her be louder.

"Your tits were always huge," Katya grunts. She's grinding her hard-on against her hip and she is breathing heavily onto her face, filling her nostrils with the smell of cheap alcohol. Beatrice whines. They're both desperate. "Been wantin' to suck on 'em for ages."

Katya flips up Beatrice's shirt so it covers her head. She laughs as she pulls it back down with a huff, only for Beatrice to twist and pull the hem of it up as she looks down at Katya on her knees. Her hot tongue drags up the baby hairs on her round belly and Katya scrambles up onto her feet again to lap at a nipple.

“But you aren't,” Beatrice sighs, with an arm wrapped around Katya's head, tugging a handful of hair to make her groan around her. A hand pinches the rolls of fat on Beatrice's waist, then one comes up to squeeze the breast she isn't coating in her saliva.

Katya bites down on her nipple and Beatrice tugs harder. She then grabs onto the shoulder of her jacket with her other hand as Katya sucks the hard bud into her hot mouth. Beatrice won't allow herself to, but she could come from this. Nobody ever touches her, she's too busy with her studies, being perfect at everything.

"This is why you lose. I have to motivate you," Beatrice says.  There is a rumble in Katya's throat and she bites again, harder, and Beatrice sobs a little. She's wet. Wetter than she's been in a long time, and she needs her to be inside her already. Katya wrangles away from her to stand upright. She's flushed and drooling and she wipes her mouth with the cuff of her shirt.

Beatrice can feel her so hard against her thigh and her mind races with all the things they could do. All the things Katya could do to her.

“Gloater,” Katya growls it in her face. Her eyes cross when she says it. She's sweating down her forehead, her red cheeks.

“Sore loser,” Beatrice spits back, and she shoves her back an inch by a soft hand to her chest.

“You’re the one who’s gonna be sore,” Katya says. She shoves her back in kind, though without any kindness, onto the bed. Beatrice falls back with a moan. She spreads her legs wide and Katya settles between them. Beatrice's arms push herself up to meet her in a kiss. The resemblance to what she's imagined on her lonelier nights is uncanny, and that doesn't surprise her, it only serves to impress herself.

Both of them kiss like the other isn’t pulling their weight, teeth scraping here and biting there. The wet sound of their tongues has Beatrice whining pitifully into Katya's mouth, and she steels herself from chasing after her as she pulls away. As Katya starts yanking her tie loose, Beatrice notes the differences between the pair.

Their chests don't rise and fall together, as lovers are said to do. Beatrice's taking short and light breaths, whereas Katya's are deep and heavy. Katya's skin is tan where Beatrice's is pale, but at present, they are a mutual shade of pink. Katya pulls her tie off from around her neck and drops it onto the bed. As Beatrice's vision blurs, so do all of her observations.

"You don’t know what it’s like to lose,” Katya says. She rolls Beatrice over and jerks her around by the hips, positions her ass up and face-down in the pillows. Beatrice moans at the sound of a belt hitting the floor hard. The soft sound of a jacket falling to the floor soon follows after.

Her eyes are squeezed shut at the thought of what Katya must look like. She won't look back to watch as she unbuttons her shirt, won't allow her the satisfaction of seeing her desperate wanting on full display. She is able to cheat by staring at Katya's reflection in the window and she watches on with an open mouth as her heaving form sidles up to her own. Beatrice is too prideful to continue.

She drops her head into the bedding and rubs her sweaty face into the soft fabric. Any faint traces of make-up from the day stains the bedding and she's losing her breaths over the knowledge of what else will be soon to stain the sheets.

“Winnin’ every fuckin' year," Katya says, as she kneads Beatrice's asscheeks. She's squeezing hard enough to bruise. She is soaking through her underwear, leaking into Katya's hands. "All because you’re easy on the eyes.”

“That’s a lie," Beatrice says. All efforts not to cave in and watch Katya are forgotten, as she glares back at her over her shoulder. Katya's meeting her heat in kind, green eyes cutting into hers as she shoves down her pants and briefs. Beatrice can't help the shimmy of her aching hips and the rise of her ass higher into the air. She doesn't want to help it. It is apparent in how she fucks the air in place of Katya.

“Shuddup,” Katya bends down and wraps her hand around her mouth, digging her fingers into her fat cheeks. Her hand smells like the vodka on her breath and of come, like she touched herself after a couple of glasses at the thought of coming to the hotel and storming up to her room.

It makes Beatrice whine into her hot, sweaty palm. Katya's hard-on digs into her thigh and she pushes back into it.

“All you've done today is talk. I'm so fuckin' sick of it,"  Katya mutters. She lets go and leans away again. Beatrice is waiting for her, insane with impatience, liquid running down her legs. She hears Katya rummaging through her pants then hears foil rip, and she looks back to see Katya chewing on a condom wrapper.

“Always so prepared, Harvard?” Beatrice laughs at her, breathy.

Katya's jaw tightens around the wrapper before she spits it onto the bed, nodding with a bitter smile. She slaps both hands down on her ass and Beatrice hisses. Katya peels the crotch of her wet underwear to the side and grips her cheeks hard, slides her cock back and forth between her legs, spreading her wetness over herself.

“If that’s how you want it, Columbia.”

Beatrice curls up the bedding into her fists with a moan and her head lulls back, legs parting further without thought. Her breasts bounce gently as she rolls her hips to stroke herself over Katya's length.

“You going to make me wish I didn’t win?” Beatrice asks, smirking at ceiling above them.

“I'm gonna make you wish you never met me."

Katya squeezes her asscheeks so hard the sensation rivals that of her edging in. Beatrice is overwhelmed, eyes bugging before they screw shut and a moan comes out of her mouth, long and high-pitched. Katya stills and moves her hands to squeeze her soft stomach.

Her groan rumbles through Beatrice and it makes her slide off of Katya only to slam back on her cock, to give her a kick start. Katya just dumbly remains still. Beatrice huffs.

“Your pussy's nice ‘n tight,” Katya mumbles it out like she's in a daze. Beatrice whimpers, but Katya remains unmoving. She can feel Katya shudder against her, and then she's fucking her slowly, but hard enough for the headboard to bang against the wall in time with Beatrice's moans. Katya's voice regains some composure. “You never get fucked, huh?”

“'Neither do you,” Beatrice says. Katya grunts and runs a hand flat up her spine and curls two fingers lightly around her neck. Beatrice shakes her head and she wraps a hand in her long hair instead. They don't speak after that. Beatrice makes a plethora of sounds to fill the silence; whines, whimpers, moans, curses. Katya breathes loud and heavy. But they don't speak, not until Katya groans when Beatrice reaches a hand back to squeeze her tight ass.

“Say it," Katya says, whiny. It makes Beatrice's hips jerk. Katya pulls out of her and she cries out at the feeling of emptiness. She rolls over onto her back and grabs Katya by the hips to bring her in close.

“What?” Beatrice asks, desperate. She wraps her hand around her cock and squirms on the bed as she guides her back inside. A moment passes before Katya reacts and she pushes Beatrice down into the bed, scoots closer to her and pushes all the way in. Beatrice moans and drops her head back into the bedding. She swallows hard. “What? What do you want me to say?”

“Say you’re,” Katya doesn't manage a sentence. It drops off into a moan as she bucks her hips with little rhythm. She's breathing heavy enough to produce a flash of concern in Beatrice's mind. It fades away with the thought of how full she is with Katya throbbing inside of her. “Say you’re a spoiled princess.”

“I’m spoiled,” Beatrice repeats. She rolls her eyes but closes them tight when Katya squeezes her breasts. Katya demands her to say it again as she pinches her nipples and Beatrice gasps. “I’m so spoiled. I'm a spoiled princess, fuck.”

“A fuckin’ brat is what you are," Katya moves her hands to dig her fingers into the bed on either side of Beatrice's shoulders. She arches her back as she moves over her and Beatrice curls her legs around her hips, licks her lips when Katya's sweat drips onto her mouth. “Say...”

“What? What?” Beatrice is going mad, squirming underneath her, and she digs her nails into her shoulders, drags them down her back so that there will be scratch marks on her skin. Katya shudders and bucks into her harder. The bedframe dents the wall.

“Say you didn’t deserve to win."

Beatrice's eyes flash and her jaw tightens. Katya laughs a little with her eyes rolled back, but her laughter dies when Beatrice uncurls her legs from around her.

“You’re ridiculous!” Beatrice moves her hands to Katya's slick chest and shoves her once, then smacks her pecs to startle her. Katya pulls out and backs away, edges off of the bed with her pants falling to her ankles. “Oh my God. Fuck you. Fuck you!”

“Hey, I was just-” Katya starts, her eyes wide. She tries to crawl back onto the bed to console Beatrice, but she shoves her away again, harder this time, sending Katya onto the floor with a loud thud. Indistinguishable voices start to rise in the rooms next door, or perhaps in the hallway, she can't tell, blood is pumping too loud in her ears. She begins to wrap the sheets around her but abandons the action.

She opts to get off the bed and pick up her robe from where it was discarded, staring daggers into Katya's eyes, daring her to try to touch her body. Katya stands up but keeps her distance. Beatrice grits her teeth at the sight of her cock still being hard, shiny and dripping with Beatrice's wetness and her own leaking onto the carpet floor.

“You weren’t joking!” Beatrice shouts, right in Katya's face. She huffs and throws on her robe, ties it tight around her waist. Katya is tripping over herself as she pulls up her underwear and pants, all the while backing away from her.

“I wasn’t gonna say that," Katya laughs again and is grinning, as if having her was a joke. Beatrice is disgusted; with Katya, with herself, with this city, with the alcohol she consumed that pushed her into this mess. She wants to cry but she won't let herself, not in front of Katya.

“Get out of my fucking room," Beatrice throws a finger at the door. Katya buttons her pants and gives her a look as if to say _really?_  and Beatrice wants to push her out of the hotel window. "Get out. Get out, you fucking asshole!”

Katya stumbles over her feet and is muttering curses as Beatrice's small fists beat on her strong back. Katya hurries out of the room, leaving behind articles of clothing. Beatrice hopes she freezes in the cold Boston night. She slams the door in Katya's face and leans her back against it. She's suddenly freezing in the room, what once was hot on her skin now growing cold.

“Hey, Columbia!" Katya's voice is against the door and Beatrice curls her fists, just barely keeps herself from pounding on the door right where she imagines Katya's nose to be. Tears begin to roll down her cheeks and she sees herself in the reflection of the windows. She thinks she's beautiful, knows it, but right now she hates the sight of herself. "Until we meet again, right?”


End file.
